Pretoria - Patients at Kalafong Tertiary hospital in Atteridgeville were yesterday left dejected and some were forced to wait in queues for hours due to a shortage of staff.
This was because many workers had joined the public service strike and marched to the Treasury over a wage dispute.
Some patients returned home unattended, bemoaning the fact that there appeared to be a lack of urgency to assist them.
A nurse, who refused to be identified for fear of victimisation, said some nurses were prevented from entering the facility by their striking colleagues.
Those who reported for duty very early were able to go to their workstations without disruption, she said.
Another nurse said patients already hospitalised received medical attention.
Those who came to consult were left in the lurch as there were no clerks to assist with opening patients’ files.
“It is very quiet inside the hospital. We are just lucky to be inside because we came in very early,” the nurse said.
Hospital spokesperson Given Makhuvele said: “It is not true that services have been disrupted.
“However, the queues are unusually slow because the majority of clerks did not report for duty.
“Patients have been made aware and reassured that they will be seen in various clinics. The delay in retrieval of files affects the pharmacy as well.”
He said there were enough nurses and the hospital did not have an unusually high rate of absenteeism. “The doctors are also at work.”
The situation was calm at Home Affairs offices in Pretoria, with people standing in queues waiting to apply for, or collect, their ID documents.
At 1.30pm there was still no sign of service disruption but some people said they had been waiting for at least three hours.
People who came to visit their incarcerated relatives at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Service said they hadn’t noticed anything to suggest workers were on strike.
Pretoria News